• Destiny.

    Just what is destiny?

    Is it an unseen force, driving at your life, that you have no control over? Is it the winning lottery ticket, that you never would have won if you hadn't purchased it? Is it why bad things happen to good people, or why good things happen to bad people? Can someone with hard work and dedication change their destiny?

    If mankind could control their own destiny, would they do so responsibly? Or is it possible for everyone to have their way all the time, without interfering with another person getting their own way too?

    What if mankind really had no control over their destiny? Or, more specifically: what if one person, or a select few controlled the destiny of everyone else – from the dawn of time to the end of time?

    I'm driving a car right now, on the wrong way on a one way street. I haven't had a sip of alcohol, yet I have a bottle of Jack Daniels right next to me, open. I'm swerving deliberately to mimic the appearance of intoxication, still being careful enough not to injure anyone... yet. Of course, driving like a madman takes significantly more skill than one would presuppose.

    I find my turn onto the busy Osakan streets, as the police are chasing me in full pursuit. Despite what movies about the Triads or the Yakuza or any other Asian criminal empire might let you believe, police chases are not a regular occurence on the Japanese mainland, even when there is known criminal involvement. Street races are common on the expressways, but I took special care to attract the extra attention. I had been going the wrong way at rediculously high speeds on the DaiNiTomei Expressway* for close to an hour, and now that the police had finally taken pursuit, the trap was all set.

    I find the dark blue Toyota just up ahead. My target. My mission – which could easily be screwed up – is to create an opportunity for him and one of the officers, a female, to meet. Should they do, they will get married, and give birth to a daughter. This daughter – whom I've nicknamed “Eve” - will have a unique evolutionary advantage embedded into her DNA. Within several hundred-thousand years, almost all of the humans on Earth will have this feature – including myself. So the fact that someone has to do what I am about to do could be described as destiny. It's a predetermined event.

    If you haven't realised it yet, I plan on crashing into the Toyota. Not head on, but I'm going to T-bone the rear of the vehicle. I have been assured there are no passengers, so this should be enough. I unbuckle my seat belt at 150 kilometers per hour and brace for impact, and the Jack Daniels is spilling everywhere as I fly towards the windshield. Upon impact, I don't feel a thing.

    Of course, my car, now a total junkheap infused with the Toyota, is surrounded by Police officers. The car is so mangled that there is no way I should have gotten out so easily, even from all the broken windows. With nobody to arrest, the female officer goes and administers first aid to the driver of the Toyota, awaiting the arrival of the ambulance.

    Other officers look in the surrounding area for me, all of them surprised that I escaped unseen. However, I have an evolutionary advantage over them, right?

    By the time I should have hit the windshield, I was already in my favourite park. At the other end of the world. And several centuries earlier than this moment.